Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point’ on AMC+, a Peculiar Holiday Dramedy Capturing a Family in Transition

Those of us who’ve crammed into Grandma or Uncle Gus’ house for a family Xmas party will intensely feel the VIBES of Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point (now streaming on AMC+). Writer-director Tyler Taormina reconstructs a holiday gathering for this unconventional, and dare I say experimental, riff on conventional Christmas-movie formulas, which plays out in not-quite-real-time over the course of one night. The film features a large ensemble (including Michael Cera, Maria Dizzia and (nepo baby alert) Francesca Scorsese and Sawyer Spielberg) talking over each other at crowded dinner tables and kitschy basements and out in the garage over a smoke, while we see and feel all kinds of stuff that’s familiar to these kind of middle-class assemblies of kin.

CHRISTMAS EVE IN MILLER’S POINT: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: A family races down the road, Christmas presents sliding around the back of the station wagon. Dad drives too fast and Mom jokes that he should drive like his family is actually in the car and he wants them to reach their destination safely. Two cops in a speed trap clock him on the gun and shrug. We’ll see those cops again, but not how we might expect – they’re weirdos, and don’t seem particularly committed to doing their jobs well. Dad plasters on a fake smile and asks if that’ll work; this is the face he wears to extended-family gatherings. It’s Xmas Eve and they get to the party and there’s tinsel and NOELs on doors and overdecorated trees and people everywhere and even more food and Grandma (or Great Grandma if you’re on the younger end of things) sitting quietly in her chair and kids running around and booze glasses clinking and people fiddling with chunky cell phones with actual buttons on them, which tells us it’s the mid-2000s, although it very well could be 1981 at Uncle Bob and Aunt Kris’ house, with my dad’s many siblings and almost all of my myriad cousins in attendance. It feels so very authentic.

Now let’s not oversell the plot here. There isn’t much of one. But the four main adult siblings convene in a kid’s bedroom to talk about their mom. This is her house and one of her children and his family live here, taking care of her as her health deteriorates. Maybe it’s time to put her in a home so she can get the professional care she needs and take the burden off everyone else. And maybe it’s time to sell this house, which has been so very lived in, like it is now, with a cadre of boys playing video games in the basement and folks playing the old player piano in the living room and the little dog putting his little paws up on the window so he can look wistfully outside at a deer in the yard. He’d surely love to chase it. Suburban America!

Could – could this be the last family Christmas party in this house? Sure seems like it. And nobody talks about it, but I will, because it’s hanging in the air, invisible but oh-so-present: Will these gatherings still happen at all? Mayhaps it’s too busy to think too much about such things because there’s so much to do, like pulling on hats and coats and mufflers to run down the block for the parade of fire trucks or crowding around the table to eat tons of food that you don’t normally eat, like the one uncle’s specialty, crunchy breadsticks wrapped in salami. (Some kids grab some of the salami wraps and chuck them at the Christmas tree.) The adults get a little drunk and some of the teenagers sneak out to have an adventure with other teenagers, and we hang out with them for a while, and the same goes for the cops, who pick up a stray dog but are apparently content to let crimes and misdemeanors happen, not that we really see any beyond a little underage drinking. One of the cops is played by Michael Cera, wearing the world’s patchiest beard. I think that deserves to be mentioned.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Richard Linklater’s spirit hovers over this movie – think Dazed and Confused and the melange of joy and melancholy you feel when you contemplate its profound ponderings about the passage of time.

Performance Worth Watching: Tony Savino plays Uncle Ray with a thoughtful mixture of subdued, sensitive melancholy and tough-guy Long Islander. The character lingers longer than you might expect.

Memorable Dialogue: “Now that you’re over the hill, you pick up speed.” – one of the uncles

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Who are all these people and how do they relate to each other? Maybe you’ll piece it together somewhat, who’s whose nephew or wife and all that, and it all becomes prevalent at the very end of the film, which is a deliberate choice by Taormina, who clearly doesn’t want us to get hung up on particulars like how old these people are or what they do for a living or what they were thinking when they settled on that hairstyle. He’d rather immerse us in a sea of overlapping voices and bits of character and near-panoramic shots of buffet tables covered with serving dishes full of family-recipe dips and snacks (mine? Polish roses made with pickle spears and homemade Chex mix. What’re yours?). There are no traditional central characters, protagonists or antagonists, and the conflicts that arise – a mom wrestling with her teenager’s angst, the debate about Grandma’s care – are just Life Playing Out In Front Of Us, in a realistic but also obviously calculated, staged fashion. 

The only conflict in Miller’s Point is humanity vs. the passage of time, which inevitably enforces change upon decades-long traditions. Progress is such a mixed bag, isn’t it? These ideas emerge slowly but steadily over the course of this offbeat acquired-taste of a hangout movie, which Taormina spritzes up with stylistic flourishes and dashes of surrealism. Some will find its methodical pace draggy, or struggle with its stubborn insistence upon not giving us a single thing we expect. I feel that frustration. But the film can be doggedly strange in a way that’s challenging and fascinating, ultimately landing on many keen, sincere observations of human behavior. I’m not sure this highly unconventional approach always works – when it deviates from the party and hangs with the two cops, it feels like it’s dithering around, self-consciously fishing around for oddball comedy – but it hits when it needs to the most. Which is probably the next day, when you’ve had some time to reflect on Taormina’s distinctly idiosyncratic take on the bittersweetness of Christmas.

Our Call: Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point isn’t always easy to like, but it’s always easy to admire. STREAM IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.